


We've Met Before

by restrained_ubiquity



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Oq, Outlaw Queen - Freeform, missing year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 12:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4222296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restrained_ubiquity/pseuds/restrained_ubiquity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Regina had gone through the tavern door but Robin wasn't the man she thought he would be...or was he?  A look at how their interactions may have gone if they'd had that first meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We've Met Before

**Author's Note:**

> Overwhelmed with OQ feels after watching the Ever After panel. I posted this on ff, but figured I'd put it up here as well. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

**1**

 

Regina stared through the rippled glass in the door, her hand on the nob that she was afraid to turn.  She watched the man Tinkerbell had brought her to until the pixie dust faded around him.  He didn’t move from his place at the bar, didn’t engage anyone in conversation.  His arm rose only to accept another ale.  This couldn’t be her fate, she thought.  This man couldn’t be her happy ending.  Yet, she was here and since the fairy seemed to have vanished, she was stranded.  “It can’t be worse,” she whispered to herself as she pulled the door open and walked inside.

Dozens of hungry eyes were on her instantly.  Her eyes darted around the room then down to her white, jeweled gown.  I was one of the simplest garments she owned, but here she would have stood out less if she had been on fire.  The men were whistling, the women either cackling or looking at her with contempt.  She stood frozen until the man with the lion tattoo finally turned to see what had ignited the bar crowd.  Their eyes locked; Regina had never seen that color blue.  “I… We…” she stammered, cursed herself for not taking the time to figure out what to say to him.

He looked her up and down then smiled.  She noticed the deep set dimples on his face.  “ _I_ am going to finish my drink and then maybe _we_ can find something more fun to pass the evening.”  He reached for her hand, but she pulled away harshly.  The sudden movement cost him his balance and he fell to the floor at her feet.

The bar erupted in laughter and applause as Robin got his legs underneath him.  It was not an easy task.  He took a drunken step towards her and Regina ran.  She shoved through the door and stumbled out into the street, covering her face with her hands as hot tears threatened to fall.  What was she thinking?  She cried out in frustration and kicked at the dirt.

 “If you don’t want to wait for Mr. Hood, mi’ lady, I would be more than happy to oblige you.”  The drunk pushed her against the wall and her head bounced off the hard surface.  He moved quickly: hands on her breasts, a knee between her legs.  His breath reeked of cheap ale and tobacco as he licked at her flesh.  Regina’s head was spinning.  She should be fighting, she should be screaming, but her body wouldn’t react.  She heard the fabric of her dress rip seconds before the night air hit her legs.  She watched the crystals from her bodice scatter in the dirt and stared at them as they reflected the moonlight.  She was absent, apart, mind receding to the all too familiar place that got her through the nights the king wanted to be a husband. 

Regina closed her eyes.  This was fitting; this was her price for hoping her life could take a different turn. 

There was a whistle past her ear, a sting across her lip, then a loud grunt as the man before her fell to the dirt.  Before Regina could process what had happened she was in the air, gracelessly flung over a shoulder.  She finally engaged.  “Put me down!” she cried into the rough tunic, thrashing against this new captor.  He lost his grip and she rolled from his shoulder, landing on all fours and face to face with the dead eyes of the man that had just accosted her and the arrow embedded in his chest.  Strong arms wrapped around her middle and pulled her back, dragging her around the corner. 

Regina clawed at the arms that held her until the sleeve pulled back to reveal the tattoo that had started this ridiculous quest.  She stopped fighting suddenly, sagging against him and let this stranger pull her into the shadows of the alley.  He pressed her into the wall, but his touch was gentle. “I apologize, mi’ lady,” he said as he ripped his sleeve and held the cloth to her bleeding lip.  “Usually my aim is better.”

“You are apologizing for saving me?” she panted into his fingers.   Regina was sure he felt it too: the electricity that was coursing in her veins.  Her heart hammered in her chest when he leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers.

“This is no place for a woman such as yourself.”  His breath was hot as it rasped against her neck.  “I don’t know what you hoped to find, but I can assure you it isn’t here.”  He staggered before her, the drink coursing through his system and she shot her arms out to steady him.  Her arms rested on his biceps, feeling the muscles contract under her touch. “Stay here,” he pushed her back further into the shadows.  “Please.”  

 Regina nodded against the hand that now cupped her cheek.  Then he was gone and she was alone in the dark, the cold hair prickled her skin but the shiver that ran through her wasn’t from the chill.  This stranger that was supposed to be her happiness, that wanted nothing to do with her, that had come to her rescue, that had touched her with more tenderness than she’d thought herself worthy, ignited something inside of her she didn’t think she’d ever know.

He returned with moments later, leading a chestnut mare.  “She is no longer needed by her master,” he offered in response to her questioning look.  He removed his cloak and rapped it securely around her, covering the skin her ruined dress was revealing.

“You’ve just killed a man!” she said to loudly and his hand came up to cover her mouth until she realized her mistake and nodded against his palm.   “You can’t just send me away,” her voice was soft, defeated.  He retightened the cloak and she tried to shrug of his arms, but her heart wasn’t in it.  She knew there was nothing she could for him here.  Once back to the palace, back to her royal life and she could intervene to spare him punishment.  She could save…  “I don’t even know your name?” she whispered.  Her heart broke at the realization that she never would.

“A common thief,” he answered.  “I believe under current circumstances its best that is all you know.”  He bowed gracelessly and once again stumbled into her.

“How did you know I could ride, Thief?” Regina stroked the neck of horse.  The beast leaned into her touch.

“A woman bold and audacious enough to walk into a tavern and approach a notorious thief can surely handle a horse.”  He held the reins with one hand, offering his other to help her mount the ride.  Under normal circumstances Regina would have shrugged him off.  She was a better rider than half the men in the kingdom and scorned any gesture that made her appear weak.  But this man, this thief, didn’t look at her with pity.  Although she was wrapped in his cloak, dress torn, mouth bleeding when he offered his hand it was nothing more than that: a hand to help her up, one that she took willingly.  “There is a blade on the saddle.  I pray you won’t need it.” 

What more was there to say?  This misadventure was over.  She should have never given in to hope.  She should never have let the stupid fairy bring her here.  She’d only done what she always did: lost. Regina held his gaze until her eyes burned with tears.  She expertly turned the mare and rode hard into the forest without another word. 

The thief held his ground until he could no longer hear the echo of the horse’s hooves.  A feeling of dread washed over him as he stared at the wisps of moonlight.  He couldn’t explain it, but he knew this woman had changed him.

 

* * *

 

**2**

 

The arrow whizzed past her cheek and ignited the door in flames.  Her eyes were on him in an instant, flaming hotter than the trap he had saved her from.  And she’s yelling at him…again.  Throwing insults out of reflex more than contempt, but then she crumbles.  It’s only a moment and then the mask of the queen is back on, but it’s long enough for Robin to reconcile all of the nagging feelings of recognition he’s had since the moment they met.  Robin’s certain she thinks it goes unnoticed so he lets the moment pass for now, leading their party through the traps and enchantments of the castle.

It’s late when he makes his way to her rooms, silent and cautious as the thief he is.  Robin watches her, unguarded and unadorned.  If he hadn’t recognized her before there was no denying it now.  Her hair flowed freely down her back; her face was bare and illuminated in the moonlight.  He moved toward her before he thought better of it, no longer bothering to keep his movements stealth.  “What are you doing in here?” she lashed.  “Get out!”

“Forgive the intrusion, Your Majesty, but I needed to see you.”

“Are we under attack?”  The alarm in her voice was true.  Robin could see her tense for the inevitable battle.

“Not at the moment,” the thief confessed.  Robin wished he’d had a better reason for his intrusion than his own curiosity.

“Then why did you _need_ to break in to my chambers, Thief?”  He reached out and ran his thumb over her lip, over the scar that his arrow left.  Regina recoiled.  “You would dare to touch me?”  Flames began to form in her hand; Robin felt the heat building between them; he saw the flames reflect in her eyes.

“Enough!” He shoved her arm down and the flames extinguished.  “If you will let me speak more than five words without threat or insult you may actually hear what I’m trying to say!”  He got in her face and Robin cringed when he saw her tremble.  He realized in that moment there had probably been two types of people in her life: those that cowered in fear of her and those that caused her to cower.  He stepped back, held up his hands, and looked into her eyes until he saw her relax.  “We’ve met before,” he said gently and was surprised when her posture fell and she nodded in confirmation.  “When did you realize?”

“The moment I saw you.”  She walked away from him out to the balcony.  Robin gave her a moment to stare into the night before he joined her.  He stood by her side at the railing, following her eyes to the moon above.  “I never thanked you for what you did back then.”

“Almost taking your head off with an arrow?  You do seem to affect my aim.”  His attempt at levity earned him a small smile and he watched the scar pull at her lip.  “You saved my life that night, Your Majesty.”

She looked at him like he’d suddenly turned into some magical beast.  “I remember it the other way around.”

“I may have protected your virtue, but that night was the last I spent drunk off my ass in a dirty tavern; it was the last night I spent away from my son and the responsibilities that I was running from.  You changed something for me.”  He stepped slowly closer, knowing she was still raw, still vulnerable.  “Although I will admit to selling those lovely crystals that fell from your dress.”

“I would expect nothing less from a common thief.” She echoed his words back to him from all those years ago.  “But, I’m glad it helped.”  She put her hand over his on the rail, not holding just resting against his.

“May I ask you something; since we _are_ old friends and all?”  Regina nodded her response.  Robin could see her walls coming down inch by inch.  “Why were you there?  You were already the queen.  To be in that place you must have had good reason.”

“Pixie dust,” she said more to herself than him.  Robin didn’t push her.  He didn’t understand the answer, but it was a start.  “I’m sorry I’ve been so awful to you.  You haven’t deserved it.  You’ve been saving my life since we arrived, since we’ve met.”  She finally met his eyes, those piercing blue eyes that saw through the farce of the queen to the woman beneath. 

He cupped her cheek with his hand and she leaned into him, resting her forehead on his.  The feeling was so familiar, yet so foreign.  Robin again traced the scar he’d left with his thumb, but this time she didn’t pull away.  He moved his other hand to her waist, holding her gently as the hand on her cheek got lost in her hair.  He brushed his lips against hers.  It was barely a kiss, yet she tensed in his arms.  Robin pulled back, not letting go but retreating to the space she was comfortable with.  “I may be a thief, Your Majesty, but I have _never_ taken anything from a woman she wasn’t willing to give.”

“Regina,” she said as she moved her arms from his biceps to his chest.  She stared into his eyes and Robin saw the last of her walls fall.  She was more the frightened girl he’d sent away than the Evil Queen who’s Black Knights hunted him.  He wondered not for the first time what he had sent her back to. “I’d prefer if you’d call me Regina; since we are old friends and all.” 

“Regina, then.”  His arm wrapped more securely around her back, fingers tangled further into her hair as he held her in the moonlight.

* * *

 

**3**

 

“Have we met before?”   There was something in his eyes; something so familiar in their easy banter.

“I’m sure I would never forget meeting you,” Robin answered, but he too felt the pull of familiarity.  It wasn’t that she was the notorious Evil Queen, for although he had heard many tales of her beauty and cruelty, he had never laid eyes upon her.  So what was it then?

He watches her as she inspects the cabin.  He should be helping, but he can’t help but stare at her when she’s not looking (and when she is.)

“Fear is quite an effective tool,” she tells him and then when he hands her the drink he sees nothing but fear in her eyes.  It’s there, plain as day, that tattoo she chased across the kingdom.  There was no reason he should be here, in another realm, in a town created by a curse, all these years later still looking at her with those damned blue eyes.  How could she not have recognized him from the start, from the moment his arrow almost sliced her face…again. 

She’s moving away from him, out of the cabin without a word, but he didn’t need her to say anything.  The moment her eyes shifted he saw her; the girl in a white dress who was in a place she didn’t belong.

“Regina, wait!” Robin chased her down the driveway, but he came to his senses a moment too late.  She disappeared into a cloud of purple smoke leaving the thief panting in the street.  “It was you,” he whispered.

//

He followed her to the woods, thankful that this time she had chosen the more conventional means of travel.  As she settled on the fallen tree, Robin settled in to watch her.  She was reading something, over and over until he was certain she had committed every word to memory.  He dared to approach her, this terrible and evil queen, when her head fell to her hands and her shoulders began to tremble. 

Regina needed to let it out and it seemed this Robin of Locksley was determined to insert himself into her life. She let him sit; let him read the secrets of her past; let him see the fear in her eyes.

He held her hand silently until she finally broke.  He rubbed her back while she admitted that she wasn’t strong enough, that her sister would destroy her, and that she wasn’t ready to die. 

Robin tried to comfort her, but he knew his voice was far too frantic.  He had just found her and he wasn’t about to lose her again. “There has to be something, something that the Witch doesn’t know?  Something your mother taught you and not her?” 

Regina laughed at the absurdity of his remark.  “The only thing my mother ever taught me was to be heartless.”  Their eyes locked and Robin saw the plan forming in her mind.  “I need you to do something for me,” she said with a renewed confidence.

“Anything.”  His eyes went wide when Regina reached into her chest and pulled out her heart.

“Keep this safe for me.”  She reached for his arm; rubbing her thumb over the tattoo she knew marked him as hers as she placed the organ in his shaking hand.

\\\

“I looked for you,” he confessed after their lips finally parted.  “Admittedly, not inside the castle walls.  I had no idea…”  The thief didn’t how to finish.  What could he tell her that wouldn’t push her away?  He had no idea she was the queen?  No idea that she would become _evil?_ He didn’t want to think that if he’d let her stay he could have changed what the future held for her and countless lives who crossed her path.

“You remember me?”  Regina’s body was shaking as much as her voice.  The scenarios running through his head no doubt running through hers as well.  Robin pulled her to his chest and held her close. 

“I do,” he whispered close to her ear.  “And I remember the feeling that ran through me the moment I saw you: there and here.”

She started to pull away.  This had been a mistake; the cracks and crevasses she let him see left her far too exposed.  But he didn’t let her go.  “I let you walk out of my life once, Regina.  I don’t intend on letting it happen again.”

“I can’t do this right now.  It’s too much, there’s too much going on.  My son, my sister, this curse…  I can’t…  This…”  She pushed against his chest, words coming in breaths faster than her mind could string them together.

“You don’t have to do anything about _this_ , Regina,” he held her hands against his chest, “but whatever you do about everything else, I’m not going to let you do it alone.  I feel I betrayed you; I always have.  Ever since that moment I watched you ride away.”

“You are NOT responsible for my past.”  Regina had had enough of blaming everyone for the devastation she had caused.  “I was a stranger that you had every right to leave, but you…”  He silenced her with a kiss to her lips, her forehead, her cheek, her scar.

“Stay at the camp tonight,” he rested their foreheads together.  “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’ll be fine, but thank you.  Truly.”  She stayed another moment in his arms; lost in feeling of being safe, wanted.

“Regina,” there was a tenderness in a voice she’d never heard.  “I don’t want to know tonight,” he laced his fingers through her hair, pulling her face up to meet his eyes.  “But when all of this is over, when we have defeated Zelena and you have your son back, I want you to tell me what you were doing there that night.”  He wiped the tears from her face and she nodded into his palm.  “Be careful.”  He kissed her once more, soft and slow, before he stepped back allowing her magic to take her away.

 

* * *

 

**4**

 

Henry remembers.  It’s all she can think about right now as he tells her about pizza, and skyscrapers, and apple trees in Central Park.  And nothing else matters.  No Wicked Witch or broken curse.  Just this: her son back in her life.  That is until he turns the tables on her and asks her about the new man in her life.  Regina feels the blush rising to her cheeks when Henry bats his eyelashes and puckers his lips.

“We _just_ started seeing each other and…”  Regina was almost knocked back by the memories flooding back to her.   How he had irritated her with his constant need to protect her;  how he had allowed her to fall desperately in love his son; how he’d drug her to the stables and they’d rode for miles; how he held her for nights on end without ever asking for more; how she had given freely what he would never take.  “Robin,” her lips moved, but she barely said it out loud. 

“Mom?  Are you okay?”  Henry’s hand was on her arm bringing her back to the present.  She looked down at her son.  The boy that now _saw_ her when he looked at her.  Although her heart wasn’t in her chest, Regina knew it was about to burst.  She had never expected to feel this much love surrounding her.

“Robin,” her voice trembled with the pounding of her absent heart.  “His name is Robin…Hood.”  She couldn’t hide the smile that spread across her face at Henry’s reaction to her mythical hero of a boyfriend.

“At your service,” Robin walked through the door sharing a brief glance with Regina that he couldn’t hold.  He shook Henry’s hand firmly, giving the boy the respect he deserved, knowing he would always be first in his mother’s heart. 

“Awesome,” Henry sized him up quickly.  The boy was acutely aware of his mother’s eyes on both of them.  She was smiling, had been for a while now and that was enough of a reason for him to welcome Robin into their life.  That, and the way he was looking at her now.

“Kid, give them a minute.” Emma saw the myriad of emotions in Regina’s face despite the smile she was hiding behind.  She wrapped her arm around her son and led him out the door.

Robin just stared at her.  His eyes told her that he was feeling it too: every look, every touch, every fight, every time they had found each other over and over again.  “Regina,” he pulled her to his chest and it muffled the cry that escaped her lips.  He knew they had a connection, suspected they’d had a history neither could remember, but everything coming back to him now was beyond all supposition.  She’d saved his boy without a thought for her own safety, made him cackle with an unbridled joy he’d never seen in his young eyes before.  She trusted him with her heart, with her mind and with her body.  How could he ever have forgotten the feel of his hands running through her hair or the warmth of her tears against his skin?  “It would seem that missing year was quite eventful for us,” he said against her forehead when he released her just enough to look into her eyes

“It would seem.”  She smiled against him, eyes growing wide as more memories surfaced.  “Where’s Roland?”

“Outside with John wondering why I won’t let him remember ‘Gina too,” Robin’s smile lined his face.  “But I’m selfish and I wanted a moment alone with you before your boys took over.”  He slid his hands down her arms and held her hands against his chest.

 _Her boys._   The simple statement went straight to her soul.  An hour ago she was a mother without a child and now her sons were waiting for her just beyond the door.  “Thank you,” she kissed the hands that held hers. 

He pulled her in one last time for a slow, tender kiss.  “Shall we?” he asked when he released her lips. Regina nodded against his cheek, eyes still closed to the feeling of him.  They walked out of the warehouse, arms around each other’s backs. 

* * *

 

**5**

 

He was kissing her, had been for some time now and Regina couldn’t say that she minded one bit except that the emotions swirling through her ever since the return of her heart were starting to overwhelm her.  She opens her eyes, lips still pressed to his, just to look at his face.  To focus.  She runs her fingers across the stubble on his cheeks and he pulls back from her when he realizes she’s no longer kissing back.  “What is it?” he asks, instantly and always concerned for her happiness.

“I just never thought I’d have this.”  She shifts so that her back is resting against his chest and wraps his arms around her.  They’re quiet for a while.  Robin’s content just to hold her, to nuzzle her hair and drop occasional kisses on her neck and shoulders.  “You’ve only ever asked one question about my past,” she says eventually. 

“I have.”  She had been still for so long Robin thought she’d fallen asleep against him.  He leans back against the couch, pulling her with him now that he knows he won’t wake her.  She curls against his chest until they are a tangle of limbs. She’s safe, happy, and finally ready to tell him the only thing he’s ever asked.

“When I first married Leopold I was miserable.  I’d lost Daniel; I’d lost hope of ever being loved or of being happy again.  And then I met Tinkerbelle,” Regina shudders at the memory, the feeling of falling endlessly.  “She saved my life.   And she told me that it was possible to move on.  She told me that I could love someone again.”  Robin’s arms tighten around her.  If only he could turn back the clock, hold her then like he is now.  Make her feel loved, and wanted, and enough.  

Regina traces the pattern of his tattoo, listens to his heart beat faster at her words. “She used pixie dust and led me to a man who she said I was destined to be with.”  She kneels between his legs and drapes her arms around his neck before kissing him again.  Robin holds her waist and weaves his fingers through her hair.  When she pulls back she sees tears in his eyes and knows that he’s already worked out the rest, but she needs to tell him.  He deserves to hear it; she owes him that and so much more for everything he has done for her.  “That’s what I was doing at that tavern, Robin: looking for the man that was destined to love me.”  His tear slips then and she catches it with her lips.  “I was looking for you.”


End file.
